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My Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition)

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21–30 of 125 posts

Re: My Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition)

#21
post #17

I am genuinely surprised at how much others spend on software. I started totaling up his list (excluding monthly services like dropbox) and stopped when I reached $500, which was right around Cornerstone.

You've already sunk money into a Computer. If you pay a little more per year on software, how much better is your computer? It's a tradeoff which depends upon how much money you have, and how much utility you will derive.

For example, unlike Windows, there is no free and convenient svn utility on the Mac. If I were using svn on the Mac frequently, Cornerstone (which is quite expensive by my standards) would be a necessity.

Twenty years ago, computers cost $5000 and $500 worth of software was no big deal. Well today, that $500 dollars will buy you just a much a productivity boost, so why is it no longer worth it? Don't compare the $500 to the price of your computer; compare it to your already-spent salary plus overhead.

In my view, most of us who love free software have a knee-jerk reaction to paying money for software. Try spending a little more per year on software and observe whether or not it improves you life. It did for me.

Re: My Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition)

#22
post #20

Springy. http://www.springyarchiver.com/ An archiver for OS X that actually works the way you expect, by opening a window to let you look inside and selectively extract from archives, rather than just spurting files all over the place unbidden like the built in one and all the other replacement ones seem to do. For some reason it took me ages to find this when I switched to mac. Drove me mad.

The built one doesn't spurt anything: if the archive contains a directory or a single file it extracts that in place, if it contains a bunch of files it will create a directory with the archive name and put the files in there. This is what I want 99% of the time.

Yes, but what if I want one file deeply nested inside a massive archive, like a source tree or something?

In the scenario you describe, I generally use the dtrx script.

http://brettcsmith.org/2007/dtrx/

Re: My Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition)

#23
If we're making our own lists, here's some that others haven't mentioned:

* Jumpcut - http://jumpcut.sourceforge.net/ - simple and unintrusive clipboard history

* dterm - http://decimus.net/DTerm - popup terminal

* bwana - http://www.bruji.com/bwana/ - man pages in your browser

* Grand Perspective - http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/ - disk usage program

Re: My Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition)

#24
* Teamviewer. Cross platform remoting: http://teamviewer.com/ I use it for support sessions and remote pair programming.

* Parallels. VM. Use it primarily for testing web apps in older versions of IE.

* Netbeans. Great search tools (search in files, search for classes, functions).

Re: My Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition)

#25

A decent starter list, but definitely not complete (for me at least). I'd add the following * TotalFinder (makes the OS X finder not terrible anymore, tabs, etc) * HandsOff/LittleSnitch (oh, you're just using the built-in firewall? that's cute.) * Transmit (everything you could ever want in an FTP app) * CommandQ (W and Q are way too close together) * Mou (free alternative to Byword) * Evernote (note-taking that sync…

I used to use many of these, but I found some of the demons/replacements problematic for resource consumption (Total Finder died so many times...)

Re: My Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition)

#26
post #17

I am genuinely surprised at how much others spend on software. I started totaling up his list (excluding monthly services like dropbox) and stopped when I reached $500, which was right around Cornerstone.

Over time it isn't so bad. I'll buy a new $30-50 application maybe twice a year (and maybe a $20 upgrade another twice a year). Now, I've got a nice collection, and it never seemed like a lot of money.

Re: My Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition)

#27
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The built one doesn't spurt anything: if the archive contains a directory or a single file it extracts that in place, if it contains a bunch of files it will create a directory with the archive name and put the files in there. This is what I want 99% of the time.

Yes, but what if I want one file deeply nested inside a massive archive, like a source tree or something? In the scenario you describe, I generally use the dtrx script. http://brettcsmith.org/2007/dtrx/

As I said: 99%. I like default tools to be optimized for the common case, corner cases are just corner cases – how often are you extracting a single file from a massive source tree?

Re: My Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition)

#29
I'd love to get a compare/contrast between Cornerstone which the article mentions and Versions:

http://versionsapp.com/

I sadly still have to use SVN for some things and have been using Versions for quite some time now. What does Cornerstone do that Versions can't do?

Re: My Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Mac OS X (2011 Edition)

#30
I was really hoping to see a fix for OS X's mouse acceleration. It's annoying when using the OS, and completely broken when I fire up StarCraft or something else that requires fast and precise mouse movements.

(I'm using a Microsoft mouse on a Mac Mini)

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